Redrock Micro are renowned for being a very innovative manufacturer of gear. Well, they proved their status again last year with this very interesting looking device, known as the “Scout” active camera cage. Now it’s finally shipping.
The idea is to include everything that is needed for manual focus control into a small and lightweight handheld camera cage. The result looks really promising.
There are two versions available, the Scout HS and the Scout HX. The main difference between both models is the lack of the built-in microRemote base station in the HS version. If you already own such a base station and a respective torque motor, this is for you.
The HX version is the far more sophisticated one, as the base station is already included (built-in) as well as a torque motor. All you need is your camera to be ready to go out and shoot.
The built-in fingerwheel communicates directly with the torque motor attached to the rig. So you can use both hands to comfortably hold your camera while maintaining the ability to nail the focus. With the microRemote base station built-in, you can let your AC pull focus with the microRemote Handheld Controller.
The cage can accommodate a wide range of mirrorless and DSLR cameras ranging from 91mm to 125mm tall and the camera can slide left to right in order to keep perfect balance. With the optional rail clamp, it’s easy to swap the whole rig from handheld to studio or shoulder mount. A neat feature for that is the external fingerwheel port which allows you to switch from the built-in fingerwheel to a remote one really quickly. When using a DJI Ronin gimbal, you can pop the Scout right on, no adapters needed.
The unit itself is powered with a standard Canon LP-E6 battery.
The active camera cage gives you one additional cold-show mount for accessories while the other one is used to accommodate the 4″ Rhino Mount for the torque motor.
The built-in base station is capable of calibrating both cine lenses with hard stops and photo lenses without these hard stops. Watch this video for an idea of how easy it is to set everything up. Please make sure to switch off the audio, it’s pretty nerve-wracking!
Pricing and comparison
Pricing is $595 for the HS version and $2,199 for the HX version for the intro period. After that, the regular pricing will be $200 more for the HS and $300 more for the HX version.
It’s nice to see how Redrock Micro listens to their customers and have a good sense of what might be useful in the field. The fact that they have used this feedback to improve their active camera cage range is much appreciated.
For additional information, please check this quick start guide by Redrock Micro.

SlimRAW is a new app that lets you compress cinemaDNG files quickly and helps you save disk space. It works with Canon 5D mark III RAW footage as well as other RAW cameras like the Blackmagic cameras, Digital Bolex or Sony FS7.
Remember the days when we shot RAW on the Canon 5D mark III? These days are not over and many people still use the Canon DSLR’s as RAW shooting machines with the Magic Lantern hack. We have an up to date guide on how to achieve this.
SlimRAW takes a folder with cinemaDNG or regular DNG files and converts them in seconds.
This saves you a ton of space. In our test the resulting files were reduced to 37.8% of the original size. We tested this with a 1 minute 5D mark III RAW sequence on a Mac Pro (quad) and it took 17 seconds to process.
Workflow with 5D RAW:
Shoot RAW with your camera. We created MLV files with our 5D mark III as per our tutorial.
Convert the MLV files to cinemaDNG with the RAWmagic app (yes, the usable full version costs money) [UPDATE]: Apparently as of a few days ago, the newly updated RAWmagic app has lossless cinemaDNG output also.
Choose the folder containing the cinemaDNG files as source and target folder. (This will overwrite the old files)
We selected “overwrite” and “Premiere CC compatibility” and clicked “Start Job”.
Imported the resulting cinemaDNG sequence in Premiere CC via the “Media Browser” tab.
That’s it. Start editing and grading your losslessly compressed files natively.
Since the firmware updates of the Blackmagic Cinema Cameras that now support losslessly compressed internal RAW recording, the app might not be so efficient for those cameras, but SlimRAW says that “slimRAW will generally achieve a bit better compression ratios since it is not limited by in-camera processing.”.
The SlimRAW app costs $39 and is available here: www.slimraw.com
Compress cinemaDNG with the following supported cameras:
Digital Bolex D16
Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera (pre-firmware 2.1)
Canon DSLR Magic Lantern raw (converted to CinemaDNG/DNG)
Sony FS700/FS7 raw recorded through Convergent Design Odyssey 7Q/7Q+
Ikonoskop A-Cam dII
Kinefinity KineMINI 4K, KineMAX 6K, KineRAW
Indiecam indieGS2K and indiePOV (uncompressed 12-bit CinemaDNG video as exported by Indiecam Instant-RAW software)
uncompressed DNG frame stacks from Fastec Imaging TS and HiSpec series cameras (10-bit in a 16-bit container and 8-bit)
most other standard compliant uncompressed 8-, 12-, 14- or 16-bit CinemaDNG footage.

It’s been three years since the Canon 5D Mark III was released, and recently it’s seen some price cuts. So naturally, rumors about a possible 5D Mark IV are ramping up, with many speculating that it could be a 4K camera.
The rumors were first reported at CanonWatch. Here’s a quick look at these rumored specs:
24MP sensor
Dual Pixel CMOS AF III
New and more advanced AF system (compared to EOS 5D3)
4k video
Anti-flickr technology (seen first on the 7D Mark II)
Improved video features
Crop mode (featured on the upcoming EOS 5Ds)
ISO 100-51200 (H1: 102400, H2: 204800)
It’s hard to believe it’s been almost 7 years since the 5D Mark II changed indie film as we know it. Canon made some significant advancements with the Mark III, so it’s only natural to expect them to raise the bar again.
Each camera that comes out these days has it’s pros and cons. We’re probably never going to have the perfect camera with the perfect specs at the perfect price point. But it’s amazing to see how much the manufacturers have improved these cameras since the DSLR revolution began.
And if these early rumors about the Canon 5D Mark IV turn out to be accurate then we could end up with Canon’s long awaited answer to the hot selling Sony A7S, an affordable full frame camera that shoots 4K.
With NAB just a few weeks away, might we expect some sort of announcement? It’s all rumors for now, but we’ll keep you updated with the latest news.

Shooting RAW on the Canon 5D mark III DSLR is still very popular. You get stunning 14-bit moving images for a fraction of the price of a “real” RAW camera and the advantages of a full-frame sensor that is good in lowlight. But like many other shooters I learned that it’s not always a good idea to use the 5D mark III RAW for a project. Here I’d like to share some points to consider.
I recently wrote an article outlining the latest development on the Magic Lantern RAW hack for the 5D mark III: Shooting RAW on a Canon 5D mark III in 2014 – What you have to know
In this article I mentioned that using the 5D mark III as a RAW camera is not suitable for productions with bigger budgets as the workflow will slow you down and it is not laid out for professional production. I’d like to elaborate on that.
Certainly there are many great features Magic Lantern RAW provides aside from RAW itself like it improves the overall usability of the camera, runs independently on an SD card, gives you more camera information (eg.: battery status), zebras, peaking, etc.
If you’re interested to shoot RAW on a Canon 5D mark III then we have a step-by-step guide for that: LINK
Above the text here’s a little advert I recently shot on the Canon 5D mark III with its RAW functionality.
Planning and pulling off this project as a 2-man crew was fun and also challenging. But I didn’t expect the camera I chose would slow down the production so much. After this project I realised that it could be unwise to choose Magic Lantern RAW for some commercial productions, so I thought I should share the experience since we’ve written a lot about that camera on cinema5D so far.
In summary I think out of the 2 weeks I needed to shoot this project I lost about 4 days to the 5D. In other words I think I would have been 4 days faster with an Arri ALEXA for example. In a production environment booking even a small crew for 4 additional days usually costs more than renting a more expensive camera. This is of course a different situation and decision from project to project, so let me just share some of the points to consider.
What to consider:
The 5D mark III was not designed to be a RAW cinema camera. It is a photo camera and its ergonomics will not always work for you.
RAW means a lot of data, means more time and storage needed. And working with image sequences…
Accurately checking data can mean downloading and transcoding first, which can be time consuming. On-camera playback is limited.
We had a card failure on a Lexar 1000x card. It fried.
Exposure displayed is not always right.
No timecode.
Bugs. Camera freezes. Resets settings…
complicated RAW workflow
Production notes:
Above I mentioned the most important things I ran into during my production and now I’ll go into those in more detail.
The idea of this production was to put the bonsai tree into a stylised environment to convey how many factors are necessary for life to work. For that I shot each transition to the next stage as a RAW sequence and merged them in post. RAW gave me the control over colours that I needed which I pushed to the extremes. For example at no point was the tree actually brown as it is shown at the beginning and also it wasn’t as green as it is at the end.
The 5D mark III was not designed to be a RAW cinema camera
A cinema camera’s ergonomics work great because its designers spent years to perfect it. The Arri products are a symbol for that approach and the 5D mark III is just a photo camera that lacks exactly this aspect. In a demanding shooting environment it can in my experience not hold up to the standards and will slow you down in one or another way that you didn’t expect.
Accurately checking data can mean downloading and transcoding first
One of the biggest issues for me during this production was to check and evaluate recorded data. I had to check that the transitions were seamless and that everything was 100% there before I went on to build the next stage. Even with the new and updated in-camera playback feature it is not easy to tell how well a shot has turned out.
So what has to be done is ejecting the card, getting the footage into the editing machine, transcoding (which can take a while) and only then you’re able to use the data in your editing software. This was a hassle to say the least. And when you have to do it 100 times a day then you see that you lose a lot of time.
If checking the data is critical, and the built in preview is not enough, then the 5D mark III RAW will definitely slow you down.
There is a new app that allows you to preview RAW files on your computer directly from the card. The app is called MlRAWviewer and we talk about it in the Tips section here. The app might help you preview files more quickly, but it is still very buggy (tried version 1.1.7 and 1.2.2 which still crashed on my machine).
For many shoots the limited new playback functionality mentioned here might be sufficient, but if you’ve got a client who wants to see the results it might be difficult to use the 5D mark III RAW.
We had a card failure on a Lexar 1000x card.
We’re not sure how it happened. The Lexar cards are usually quite ok and eventually Lexar replaced the card within a week. But when a card fries on the mark III then there’s no way to get it back as on other more secure systems.
Exposure displayed is not always right.
The image displayed on the live-view screen is not correct in terms of exposure. The RAW recorded actually seems darker.
No timecode.
Developers are working on embedding timecode in the RAW footage, but so far there is no usable method to use it. This can make workflows and syncing sound more difficult. An option is to use the sound that is embedded in the new .MLV format (more on that here).
Bugs. Camera freezes. Resets settings…
It happened sometimes during the shoot. The camera freezes and the only way to get it to work again is to remove the battery. This happened more often than we wished for and slows you down. Luckily it usually happened between takes. Unfortunately when the camera had one of these lockups it also reset some settings, including where it saved the files. So then we recorded to the wrong card, the camera froze again, etc. This slowed me down a lot and can be embarassing in front of a client.
There are other bugs each new firmware version brings. Others get resolved.
Complicated RAW workflow
In your considerations about the right camera you shouldn’t forget the complicated RAW workflow required when you use the 5D mark III. I just mention this because some people forget that shooting RAW means a lot more data and work involved. But this is also true for other cameras that shoot in a RAW format. Since the recent updates and new apps to convert RAW files the workflow on the 5D mark III has been made less complicated. You’ll find more details in our 5D mark III RAW guide.
Final Thoughts
The 5D mark III RAW can certainly be a valid tool to create stunning footage, there’s no question about that. If you’re a single operator shooter and if you have a tight budget, if you do an indie production or just want to create something beautiful with limited possibilities, then the 5D mark III can get you far.
But I would not recommend the 5D mark III Magic Lantern RAW hack to professional and commercial productions. If you’re not specifically in need for a very small, full-frame, RAW camera then I’d recommend to choose a different tool.
I hope you could benefit from the information in this post. If you have any questions I’ll answer them in the comments.

A year ago we tested the Canon 5D mark III RAW hack by Magic Lantern which upgrades the camera to shoot impressive 14-bit RAW footage. In this year development has progressed and in this post we’re looking at what is currently possible and how to do it.
If you were looking for an Install Guide go HERE
Here’s a rundown of important new features since last year:

This is a rolling shutter comparison between the new Sony A7S, the Arri Amira, Panasonic GH4, (Canon C300), Canon 5D mark III and Canon 1D C. In the first part in this series of tests we compared the usable dynamic range of the A7S and found that it comes surprisingly close to the dynamic range of the Arri AMIRA (find the dynamic range test here).
Rolling shutter is a phenomenon where straight vertical lines look bent on moving objects, or a “jello effect” appears when the recording device itself is in motion. It is a common issue with CMOS sensor cameras that read out a frame line by line over a certain period of time. A sensor with a global shutter however reads out the entire image at once, avoiding the rolling shutter effect altogether. A severe rolling shutter can be disturbing in certain shooting scenarios.

This is a dynamic range test and comparison between the Sony A7S, Arri Amira, Panasonic GH4, Canon C300, Canon 5D mark III and Canon 1D C.
The dynamic range is the range in luminance any given camera can capture. More range allows for more flexibility in post production and usually provides a more natural and hence more cinematic end result.
What is the cinema5D test lab?
cinema5D has established their own scientific testing facility to accurately measure and evaluate the performance of cameras. As a platform for reviews about cinematic cameras we strive to provide objective comparisons and share insights to help you choose the right camera for your projects.

So here we are, it’s only been a matter of time – there’s a bunch of daredevils in Berlin who are shooting a feature length film entirely with a 5D Mark III using the Magic Lantern firmware hack (click here to read our extensive Magic Lantern guide to learn how to actually deal with it!). Berlin based producers Adrian Topol, Erkan Acar, and Reza Brojerdi have teamed up with creative producer Eric Sonnenburg, writer Arend Remmers, director Adolfo Kolmerer and DOP Konstantin Freyer. The producers have gone so far and founded a corporation solely for the purpose of producing the “5D3 raw feature”, Schneeflöckchen GmbH, and the execution of production will be handled by Lopta Film GmbH in Berlin.
Creative team & story
Director Adolfo Kolmerer and DoP Konstantin Freyer look back on numerous cooperations in advertisements and image films. With “Snowflake” they are now tackling their first feature film – a genre mix of action, thriller and black comedy set in the near future. The story evolves around two outlaws, Tan and Javid, who are tracking down the man who killed their families. Their hunt is going off-track when one day they find the screenplay to the very movie they are in. Multiple exceptional characters try to survive a vicious circle of revenge and karma, challenging their own personal sense of vengeance. All this is set in a hard-boiled exaggerated world, which at second glance may not be too far out.
Crowd-funding
The producers have launched a crowd-funding campaign to help fund the production, a way of funding that is still not so common for European cinema, where films are usually funded in cooperation with TV networks and public film funding institutions. But the script might be a bit too over-the-top and politically incorrect for involving such institutions. Not only that, the entire venture really started out as a friend’s project: The script was written to fit many of their actor friends (among them producers Acar, Brojerdi, and Topol), and shooting was done every other weekend with the help of their filmmaking colleagues.
Project history
Using Magic Lantern proved to be a real winner for the production, even though the decision to use it was based on the small scale on which the project was initiated. After shooting roughly 10% of the film within 6 months, a teaser was edited from the material. The quality of the RAW image and production overall got a lot of encouraging feedback for the team. Some well-known actors agreed to jump on board, and eventually German distributor Capelight Pictures was convinced to sign a DVD/Blu-Ray distribution deal. That’s when the team decided to shift gears, and launch the crowdfunding campaign to finish shooting this summer. Release is scheduled for mid 2015. The Snowflake team has agreed to regularly post video-updates here on cinema5d in which they will highlight certain details and aspects of working with Magic Lantern in production and in the postproduction workflow. So stay tuned for more! And don’t hesitate to shoot them some questions in the comments below.
Updated on July 18:
There are various comments saying that there have been other feature films produced with Magic Lantern Raw before. The producer Florian Müssener has issued a statement apologizing for the claim that they were the first ones:
Dear Cinema5D community,the claim that we are producing the first feature film ever with the Magic Lantern hack is based in nescience of the productions mentioned in the previous comments. It’s by no way meant to downplay the pioneering effort of anyone who is or was involved in making them. We apologize if you felt this article is not objective – and we hope you will understand our intent to promote our project in an effective way. It should be safe to say, that ‘Snowflake’ is one of the first feature films ever to be shot with Magic Lantern. So we genuinely hope ‘Snowflake’ will resonate well with you, as we ourselves have been inspired immensely by this community. If you want more infos on the story and the people involved, please check out our campaign site on IndieGogo.Sincerely, your ‘Snowflake’ Team